Visa says its users more likely to complete online purchases

Reuters Staff

3 Min Read

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Visa Inc said on Monday online shoppers using its payment service are 17 percentage points more likely to complete their purchases than those using PayPal.

Visa Checkout, which allows shoppers to store their payment information without having to re-enter it every time they make a purchase online, said 66 percent of its enrolled customers completed their transactions after putting items in their shopping cart compared to 49 percent of PayPal Holdings Inc’s Express Checkout customers.

The data was collated for Visa by retail analytics firm ComScore Inc.

PayPal’s online payment service offers a similar convenience by allowing customers to log into their accounts on a merchant’s website.

Paypal has not seen this report yet, said Anuj Nayar, senior director of platform, merchant and next gen commerce engagement.

Nayar said in addition to PayPal Express Checkout the company has launched a new online payment service called PayPal One Touch, which makes using PayPal faster on any device with a single touch.

“Initial reports indicate that One Touch radically improves checkout conversion for merchants and time to checkout for consumers beyond anything else available in the market today,” he said.

Retailers and payment industry experts have often blamed the high rates of unfinished online transactions, after shoppers add items to their shopping carts, on the tiring process of re-entering payment information every time one makes a purchase.

Online payment checkout services which are available on a retailer’s website make the payment process easier for customers. They also give the service provider a slice of every transaction online; the space has recently attracted companies including Apple Inc and Amazon Inc.

“What has become more and more pronounced is as the size of the screen gets smaller, whether it’s a tablet, mobile or a watch, the less likely it becomes a consumer will finish his purchase,” Sam Shrauger, senior vice president of Visa’s digital solutions, told Reuters.

This is because entering numbers and letters on small keyboards is inconvenient and prone to mistakes.

Shrauger said 60 percent of shoppers using a computer finish their transactions compared to 45 percent of tablet users and 20 percent of mobile shoppers.

Large U.S. retailers including Best Buy Co Inc, Barnes & Noble Inc and Taco Bell have added Visa’s payment service on their websites, Shrauger said.

A year since launch, Visa Checkout has 6 million registered users. PayPal has 169 million active customer accounts.

Reporting by Nandita Bose in Chicago; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Cynthia Osterman